Longspear and Kata were already well out of van Joss' mind by the time he had gone five steps in the other direction. For good reason; while he had accomplished the greater part of his mission in bringing the Fisted into an alliance for their mutual defense, there was still the matter of the battle itself. In van Joss' experience, no battle was successfully won without intel. And no-one existed in Noranda that gathered intel better than him.
Without hesitation he headed towards the outer ring of fortresses that protected the alliance's position. According to the last reports brought in by Ryon scouts and the Lupus, last to join the alliance, the Primiad horde was only days from their position. That meant the horde's own scouts should be within visual range of the forts.
Reaching the wall and the ladder leading to the walkway that ran along the wall's crest, van Joss quickly made his way to the top, passing a number of powerful Tigris warriors and a squad of Pumor to do so. Each gave him no more than a glance as he went past, the lean operative spending considerable time on the walls as they completed their defenses.
Upon reaching the wall's crest, van Joss fished out the distance viewer he had borrowed from Kelly, something the elves called 'binoculars' and fitted them to his eyes even as he leaned against the walkway's outer edge. Instantly the rolling hills several kilometres to the south leapt into clarity in the binocular's eye pieces. Holding the binoculars in place, van Joss carefully began to scan the hill tops from left to right.
Using both the most recent reports and his own experience, the lean operative felt the horde would breach the plain there, through those hills. They were the most defensible feature on the plain that was the Plains of Neroth, mostly blasted flat by the conflagration that was the Great Burn. If they hadn't of built the fortress behind him, he would've picked those hills as a place to make their stand in.
Because of that, and the knowledge that the Primiad seemed to key in on defensive positions, using them to focus their waves of assault upon, van Joss had determined a couple days ago that the horde would come through the hills first. Seeing nothing by the time he reached the small ridge's right hand edge, he let the binoculars drop from his eyes, a thoughtful expression on his lean, weather-beaten features.
It was also the perfect place to ambush the horde's leading edge as they attempted to enter the plain.
A thin smile touched his lips. Thanks to Lord Astinar Blacklock, he now had the perfect troops with the perfect reason to make that ambush work. Time to get some wolves and go make a final recon of those hills!
The powerful Lupus leader looked annoyed when van Joss was ushered into his tent, raised in the center of their encampment west of the main fires of the alliance.
"I thought I was done with you until we met with the alliance leaders, van Joss," he growled, the momentary humility he had shown just an hour before already gone. He turned back to the maps he had been looking at, the sheets appearing to be freshly inked by recently returned scouts.
"Have you not already wrested my allegiance to your federation from me?" he asked without looking away from the sheets now in his massive hands.
"That, I have, Lord Blacklock," van Joss said with a nod. "Now I come to test that allegiance."
That brought the big Lupus' head back around, eyes narrowed.
"Test?" A long fang appeared as Blacklock's lip curled back. "Already you test my patience with your presence and your vague statements, van Joss. Spit out your reason for sullying my tent with your foul human presence. Or I'll rip out your throat."
Van Joss' smile was thin, his only reaction to the threat.
"While I know you'd get a measure of satisfaction in attempting to rip out my throat, I have a feeling you'd get far more ripping out the throats of the Primiad vanguard."
Blacklock's curled lip disappeared as the big Lupus' expression went from annoyed to thoughtful in a subtle shifting of facial muscles.
"Explain, human," he curtly ordered.
"The hills that mark the southern approach to the plain," van Joss began. "I want a company of Lupus to join me in making a final reconnoitre of them."
Blacklock immediately snorted, his annoyance returning.
"A reconnoitre?? Bah! Get a company of those overgrown oafs from the death cults instead," he rumbled. "I'm sure they'd be more than happy to ..."
"And I want them to help me ambush the Primiad vanguard as they push through the hills and attempt to scout our southern approach," van Joss interrupted the big Lupus commander to say.
Instantly Blacklock fell silent, his expression once again thoughtful.
"An ambush, you say," the big Lupus finally said after a pregnant pause. "Where my warriors could take a measure of revenge against the monkey men that forced us from our homes."
Van Joss' thin smile returned.
"So they could, Lord Blacklock," he said with a slight inclination of his head.
The Lupus commander's reply came swiftly in response.
"Then you shall have a company of my personal guard led by my son, Darkfyre. You will see no finer warriors than them. Nor a better leader of wolves than he."
Van Joss gracefully bowed.
"You've my thanks, my lord," he began before getting cut off by a curt gesture from the powerful Lupus lord.
"Save your words, human," Blacklock rumbled. "Thank me by bringing me monkey heads by the hundred so I may finally slake my thirst for vengeance!"
Blacklock was even better than his word. Even as van Joss exited the Lupus leader's tent, a company of grim Lupus warriors marched towards him. Nothing bothering to wonder how the Lupus lord had managed to command the company's appearance, van Joss stood and waited for them to approach.
"Van Joss?" the Lupus at their head rumbled. In ebony black relieved only by the slash of orange that marked his mane, the big Fisted rivaled Blacklock in size and grimness. Based on that alone van Joss marked him as Darkfyre, the lord's son and a commander in his personal guard.
"Captain Darkfyre," the lean operative replied with a nod in greeting before speaking in the Lupus dialect of the Fisted tongue. "I've been told by your sire that you are in command of this company of his personal guard."
"You aren't mistaken," Darkfyre rumbled in reply, speaking the same dialect. "My father has ordered that I lead this company of Moonrunners into the field and, with your guidance, reconnoitre the hills to the south."
"Then you are aware of our mission. Do you need time to prepare?"
The question elicited a hard look from Darkfyre and taut silence from the Moonrunners.
"Since I know you speak out of ignorance of my people and the burden the Moonrunners carry, I will forgive that insult," the big Lupus captain hissed. "But just this once. I now honor you by giving you warning: the next insult earns you a blade in the neck."
Van Joss' brow lifted slightly. Then he was mentally shrugging. Unfortunately the rather prickly Lupus captain was right; out of all the Fisted races he had contact with and knowledge of, the Lupus he knew least of all. Of the lord's personal guard, these Moonrunners, he knew absolutely nothing. But he suspected that would quickly change during the day or two spent in their company.
"Since you've already prepared for this mission, captain, then let us waste no more time." Van Joss turned away from Darkfyre and began to stride for the south gate, a couple hundred metres's distant.
To their credit, Darkfyre and the Moonrunners didn't hesitate to follow, a dark fog of grim intent that promised mayhem with every look and gesture. They flowed forward with the smooth, economic motion of well-seasoned warriors and did so despite the fact that a number of them were visibly injured, reminders of the battle fought for their stronghold on the Silver River, the Den.
Then van Joss, Darkfyre and the Moonrunners were approaching the southern gates to the fortress complex.
"Going somewhere, van Joss?" a big Tigris warrior rumbled as he stepped away from his position to wave the small company to a halt. The big cat's eyes quickly took in the Lupus in a single sweep.
"And in the company of dogs to boot."
"A recon of the southern hills, sergeant," van Joss was quick to reply, coming to a halt as requested but strangly appearing as though he was still in motion. "With the Primiad horde only a few days away, I want to assess any position that might be fortified against us." He paused to glance over his shoulder at the grimly silent Moonrunners to see if they wanted to speak for themselves. When they remained silent, he went on:
"I go with the Lupus as they recently passed through the area and have knowledge of its present condition."
Again the Tigris non-com lifted his slit-pupilled eyes to the black-clad Moonrunners to give them another appraising look. Then he was stepping aside with a nod.
"Safe travels, van Joss, and good hunting," the big cat rumbled as the lean human operative returned to full motion in a smooth shift of position, the Lupus following.
"Watch for our return," van Joss said before they were through the gate and swiftly beyond ear shot.
As they had in that fateful sprint to the front several months ago when the Imperium was first invaded, the Lupus took off at a dead run across the frost-touched ground, the withered grass carpeting the plain beneath the feet providing no hindrance to their headlong charge. As he had in order to keep up with them then, van Joss quickly shifted to a full out run as well.
Thankfully a return to decent health, bolstered by good food and fresh air, had given much of van Joss' old strength to him. With that strength he was able to at least keep pace, the Moonrunners neither drawing away from him, nor coming any closer. Which was fine with the lean operative. As long as they arrived at the same place at approximately the same time, he was satisfied.
Ten kilometres distant, it took the small company nearly a half hour to reach the rambling cluster of low hills that marked the entrance to the plains' southern march. Instead of immediately charging in, however, upon reaching the foot of the nearest of the cluster, the Moonrunners slowed to a halt, ears held high as dark eyes scanned the dull brown mounds.
Van Joss also slowed, eyes narrowed as he too scanned the hills. In doing so, he quickly confirmed what he had noticed from the fortress walls: the complete lack of any identifiable features. As it was with anything on the Neroth, prominent features and landmarks were long gone, blasted flat by the Burn or worn smooth by weather and time. That left behind a series of rolling rises that offered little in the way of cover and only a mediocre advantage of height.
Still the human was confident the horde would key on these very hills, as smooth and featureless as they were. After all, despite the fact that they had just spent several months marching over the various terrains of southern Noranda, the Primiad were essentially a jungle-dwelling people. To be faced by not only a lack of forest in any direction, but the fundamental absence of any ground feature they could use as cover as well, they would be drawn to the hills like iron filings to a lode stone.
"Ant mounds," Darkfyre rumbled, striding towards where van Joss had stopped to make his first impression look at the hills before them. The powerful Lupus turned to look back at the hills once he reached van Joss' side.
"But the most natural cover on the plains that I am aware of." He favored the lean human with a quick, appraising look. Then he was looking back at the hills.
"You are right to give this place a second look. The monkeys will key to this place, infesting it like maggots in rotten meat." A long, clawed finger pointed at a barely visible fold in the cleft between two of the taller hills on the right of the ridge.
"There. They will go there."
"Then so will we," van Joss said, striding forward without waiting to see if the Moonrunner captain would follow. Again to his credit, Darkfyre didn't hesitate. Two long strides and he was on the human's left, matching the much smaller being's pace even as he lifted a distance viewer to an eye to scan the terrain in front of them.
"This end of that cleft is narrow enough to serve as a defensible position, if they wanted to make these overgrown dung heaps a fall back," the big Moonrunner captain noted, letting the distance viewer drop to his side. Again a long, clawed finger came up to trace the top edge of the cleft, now clearly visible as he and van Joss approached it.
"The edges have been cut by runoff, which may give it an inherent weakness that we may be able to exploit to collapse the passage."
Van Joss nodded in agreement before looking over at Darkfyre.
"As long as the passage is shallow and narrow enough to be blocked by a wall collapse," he said.
With the Moonrunners clustered around them, hands close to weapons as they tried to look in every direction at once, van Joss and Darkfyre moved into the cleft's near opening. There they paused again, eyes critical as they looked at the rough and crumbling walls rising to either side and the depth and width of the cleft. Then van Joss was dropping to a knee to touch the uneven cleft floor. It was still covered with frost thanks to the ground still being in shadow despite the sun reasonably high in the sky throwing out weak, late autumn warmth and light.
"Unfortunately I don't think we'll be able to collapse the walls," he said with a downward twitch of his lips, his only expression. "The frost has settled into the ground, giving it strength." He looked over at Darkfyre. "The effort to collapse the walls of the passage would exceed the benefit achieved by doing so."
Darkfyre nodded as he stepped past the kneeling van Joss and into the passage itself, arms folded across his chest as he looked at the walls climbing upward on either side.
"Agreed," he rumbled after a moment's worth of thought. He then looked at the Moonrunners.
"I need the location of any possible ambush points on the upper edges of the cleft," he said. "Priority to locations with cover. Two of you to the west and two to the east." Darkfyre returned to looking down the cleft with a measuring eye.
"The rest of you follow me." Then he was smoothly stepping forward.
Van Joss, however, hesitated, eyes narrowed as he watched the Moonrunner captain move into the cleft, closely followed by the remaining warriors. Just because they hadn't seen the Primiad before arriving at this location, that didn't mean they weren't here. And if they were here, there was a very good chance that they too were advancing into the cleft from the other end.
Ambushing a much larger force from carefully prepared positions was one thing. Accidentally running into that same force without any preparation at all was an entirely different one.
Sensing that the human hadn't accompanied them into the cleft, Darkfyre paused and let the rest of the Moonrunners go past him as he turned to look at the hesitant human. If it were any other human, the Moonrunner captain would suggest cowardice. But this was van Joss; if even a tenth of the stories about the legendary human operative were true, cowardice had been burned out of his lean body a very long time ago.
Which meant he was hesitating for something he had either seen, or realized during their brief observation of the cleft's entrance. As the last of the Moonrunners went by, he began to walk back to where van Joss stood, gazing up at the cleft's sides.
"You suspect something," he rumbled, more a statement than a question.
"I sense the Primiad may be either scouting the cleft's far end or their vanguard have already penetrated into the cleft and are pushing their way towards us."
Darkfyre favored the lean human with a hard yet calculating look.
"Yet we saw no evidence of their presence," the big Lupus pointed out.
"Despite the fact that, based on the last scouting reports of the Primiad vanguard and its forward speed, they should've been here a day ago?" Van Joss slowly nodded. "I'm aware of the contradiction."
He paused, eyes narrowed, and gave the cleft one more look.
"Still, something feels off to me."
It was Darkfyre's turn to narrow his eyes thoughtfully as he too took another look around.
"Now that you've brought my attention to it, I too feel as if something is awry," he admitted after a moment, the admission, if anything, making him more grim. "Instead of us ambushing them, perhaps it is the Primiad that now lay a trap for us."
Van Joss's expression tightened.
"Unfortunately there's only one way to know," the human said and the Lupus captain nodded as he drew a massive two-handed sword from a hunter-style sheath across his back.
"Indeed," Darkfyre growled.
"You spring it!"